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Summary: A lesson on how to bring down racism
Review: In New Zealand, politicians, government agencies, and many businesses like to crow about how much they oppose discrimination of any kind. However, most working people who come up against racist practices know there is big gap between what these institutions say and do when it comes to dealing with instances of racism."From the Escambray to the Congo" is a powerfully account of how after the 1959 victory of Fidel Castro's 26 July movement over the Batista dictatorship in Cuba, the new revolutionary government set out close to gap between the word and the deed. How the Cuban government went about eradicating Jim Crow type racism, is told through the words of Victor Dreke, a leading participant of Cuba's revolutionary movement for half a century. The capitalist foundations that propped up racism in Cuba collapsed under the weight of the hundreds of thousand workers, peasants and young people - both black and white - coming to the realisation that racism was incompatible with the new society they were fighting to transform. As a young teenager Dreke was advised by his father to "Study and get an education and don't mess with strikes or any of that; it won't get you anywhere. Besides, that stuff's not for blacks." Fortunately Dreke did not follow his fathers advice and threw himself into revolutionary activity. Beginning as a high school activist, then Rebel Army fighter. He was a commander in the fight to root out the counterrevolutionary bands operating in central Cuba and has been an internationalist combatant and representative of the Cuban revolution in Africa. What comes across strongly for me is how the Cuba's determination to end racism in it's own country was inextricably linked to the liberation of the Africa continent from imperialist exploitation For the millions of young Victor Dreke's - male or female - in the mines, factories and on the high school and university campuses around the world - this book is for you.
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Summary: A Living Revolution
Review: Read this small book for a series of snapshots of what it was like to be a participant in the Cuban revolution that triumphed in January 1959. From a high school activist under the Batista dictatorship, Victor Dreke joined the Rebel Army and fought in many campaigns. The Escambray mountains in central Cuba were the scene of a bloody five-year-long attempt by Washington-organized groups to undermine the new regime. Like the Contras in Nicaragua 20 years later, these 'Bandidos' murdered literacy volunteers, health workers, and peasants who backed the revolutionary government. Dreke was a leader in the military and militia campaigns that wiped them out. His description of the Cuban mid-1960s contingent to aid revolutionary fighters in the Congo complements Che Guevara's own recently published account of this. Dreke notes how the Congo campaign, though not a success at the time, paved the way for critically important Cuban efforts to aid African liberation struggles, such as the decisive victory at Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, against South African forces in 1988. As with all Pathfinder titles, the well-thought-out maps, footnotes and glossary in this book help the reader with unfamiliar names and events. Numerous photos bring Dreke's story even more to life.
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Summary: First-hand testimony of the end of the Batista dictatorship
Review: Written by a soldier who fought in the Cuban revolution, Victor Dreke's From The Escambray To The Congo is a personal memoir and first-hand testimony of the end of the Batista dictatorship and the attempts to create a better government in its place. An insert of black-and-white photographs adds a visual touch to the gripping experiences both on and off the battlefield described in this memorable, gut-wrenching, up close and personal account of the modern history of a nation. From The Escambray To The Congo is a welcome and much appreciated addition to the growing library of personal memoirs and eye-witness accounts of the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath.
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